u 






E 458 
.3 

. L94 
Copy 1 



LOYALTY. 



WHAT IS IT ? 

TO WHOM OR WHAT DUE? 



1 /^w-^ 



\^ 



l\-<^ 



.u^^ 



/ 



LOYALTY. 

WHAT IS IT ? TO WHOM OR WHAT DUE ? 



These are questions vital to tlie American people, and 
if properly understood, may yet exercise a wholesome in- 
fluence on the momentous issues of the day. 

Certain it is, that a clear coDception of the import of the 
term loyalty, what the standard, and to that, a faithful 
and honest devotion from the beginning, had saved us 
from disunion, and its consequents — civil war, desolated 
homes, universal ruin and anarchy. 

Lexicographers define it, to consist in ^ ^faitlifulness to 
one's sovereign." 

In despotisms, the will of the sovereign is absolute. His 
mandate the supreme law ; He rules by his sole sovereign 
authority, unchecked by Constitution or Laws. He is 
supposed to protect his subjects in the enjoyment of life, 
liberty, and property, and for this protection, they owe him 
loyalty. The obligations between sovereign, and subject, 
are reciprocal; loyalty for protection — protection for loyalty. 

Under our form of government, the people ?ixe. sovereign, 
and by virtue of this sovereignty, in forming a govern- 
ment, they necessarily established a standard by which 
loyalty should be tested, namely, the Constitution. 

The theory upon which the government is based, pre- 
ceded, and is older than the Constitution. The latter is 
the embodiment of certain cardinal principles enunciated 
in the Declaration of Independence, and accepted as axio- 
matic truths by the statesmen and people who formed and 
adopted it. 

"That all men are created equal, and endowed with 
certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty 

AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. ThAT TO SECURE THESE, GOV- 
ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the go^tirned. 

That, if such governments fail to subserve the purpose 

FOR which they ARE INSTITUTED, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEO- 
PLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH THEM, AND TO INSTITUTE OTHERS IN 
THEIR STEAD." 

Other maxims were universally accredited, as containing 
sound philosophy and practical wisdom, namely : 

"That POWER is always stealing from the many to the 
few/' hence the danger of centralization. "That consolida- 
tion IS despotism." Hence the necessity of a division of the 
powers of the federal and State governments, to counteract 



this natural tendency. ''That the surest and strongest 

SAFEOUARD AGAINST CONSOLIDATION LIES IN THE SOVEREIGNTY OF 

THE States." "That the barriers provided by the federal 

COMPACT MIGHT BE BROKEN DOWN, BUT THAT, THEN, THE IStATES, 
jealous of their rights, AND SEEING THE GREAT PRINCIPLE 
UPON WHICH REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS ARE FORMED — the right of 

self-governmenV — about to be overwhelmed, and usurped 
by the federal authority, "would make common cause against 
THE encroachments OF THE FEDERAL POWER," and thus pre- 
vent the inauguration of a consolidated despotism. "That 

UNRESTRICTED RULE, WHETHER OF ONE MAN, OR MAJORITIES, RE- 
SULTS IN THE SAME THING — DESPOTISM." ThAT LIBERTY CAN 
ONLY BE ASSURED AND PERPETUATED TO MAN, THROUGH SOME OR- 
GANIC LAW ;" at once the decree and exponent of the popu- 
lar instincts and will. 

Upon such theory our fathers ordained a government, 
by and through a loritten Constitution ; the States ratified 
it, and it thus became the authoritative Bond of the Union. 

Having been thus adopted and ratified by the people, it 
stood as the symbol of their aggregated sovereignty ; as 
the pledge and assurance from one man to another, one to 
each, and each to all, that by and through this Bond alone, 
should governmental functions be exercised, "and for the 

PROTECTION OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PROPERTY." 

It thus became their covenant against anarchy and des- 
potism ; their deliberate oath and pledge that liberty 
should be assured to all, and perpetuated for oil. 

To the Constitution, then, as that which ordained the gov- 
ernment, and endowed it with specific parts and functions as 
a political organism — the source of all law and all power 
— the measure of civil right and justice — the law higher 
than the laws, and by wdiich they shall be tested; — to this, 
and this alone, is loyalty due ! As the standard of fealty, ru- 
ler and ruled, President and people alike, owe it allegiance. 

So considered its framers, for they stipulated therein, 
'■'■That the President, hefore he enter on the execution of his 
office shall take an oath, or affirmation, to preserve, protect, 
awr;^ DEFEND the Constitution o/" //ie United States;" And, 
"That Senators and llepresentatives in Congress, the mem- 
bers of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and 
judicial officers of the United States, and the several States, 
shall take an oath or affirmation to support this Constitution. 

The military is subject to the same test. As between 
citizen, and citizen, there is an implied oath of fealty, and 
a higher })ledge — that of honor! If then, the Constitution 
be the standard of loyalty for all, president, legislator, and 
people alike, and the bond of the Union, the following may 
be affirmed as postulates : 



First: That want of fidelity to the Constitution is trea- 
son to the Union: Second: — That loyalty to a disloyal 
administration is treason, both to the Union and the Con- 
stitution. Third: That support is due from a loyal peo- 
ple, to a loyal administration, and such support is fealty 
to the Constitution : but, that to sustain and uphold an 
administration in the exercise of powers infractive of the 
organic law, is to become aiders and abettors of its trea- 
son ! Fourth: — That obedience to law, and acquiescence 
in the will of the majority are paramount obligations, 
only, when the law and such will come within the scope 
of the delegated power ; acquiescence beyond these limits 
is cowardly submission, and treason to the Constitution I 

Upon his induction into office as President, Mr. Lincoln 
took the prescribed oath — as supposed at the time — '^vith- 

OUT ANY mental RESERVATION OR EVASION, TO PERFORM IN GOOD 

FAITH, ALL THE DUTIES REQUIRED OF HIM," by the Constitution! 

Bow has he kept his oath? The people, confiding still, 
and yet patriotic, though forbid the use oi free speech; 
manacled hand and foot, and prone almost at the mercy of 
an imperious tyrant, begin to awake from their re])ose of , 
trust and confidence, to exclaim. 

Sir ! Mr. President ! How have you kept your oath ? 

And this voice, though ^'■still and small" at first, aug- 
ments in force and volume, as it reaches the ears of the 
usurper, is the premonition of "the hand-iuriting upon the 
loall," and the knees of "Honest Abe" shake with fear like 
unto Belshazzar's. 

The people exclaim, "the plea of a military necessity, 
will not exonorate you, Sir ! The Constitution teas equal to 
the emergency. You never have tested its powers ; you are 
not eniitied therefore to the privilege of the plea. Until this 
had been done your acts must he viewed as wicked, and loan- 
ton usurpations! Why did you not come before us ivith the 
practical demonstration of its inadequacy f Then had we 
listened to you! A Constitution unequal to the greatest emer- 
gency, is a frivolous thing — we are not prepared to believe that 
the patriots and statesmen of the Revolution understood so im- 
perfectly the loorlc they had to do, nor the adaptation of means to 
an end, as this would indicate ! But, suppose ive entertain your 
plea f — What then 1 It is a tacit confession. Sir, of the failure 
of the experiment. If this is the best that man can do in his 
own behalf, the demonstration is perfect ! He is incapable of 
SELF government ! Let us then no longer cheat or deceive 
one another, but conceding the fact, imitate the example 
of the fathers of the Kepublic, when under the Articles of 
Confederation, the Union proved a failure, — let the States 
fall back on their original sovereignty, and agree, if they 



(\ 



can, to adopt some other and better form of Confederation 
to be "binding only between the States uatifying the 
SAME ;" and, thus, shall we avoid the horrors of civil war, 
and the terrible retributions of universal anarchy. 

But, again, the people demand, ^^ Mr. President, Hoiu 
have you kept your oathf" And they respond for you. — 
' ' Let your Bastiles ansicer !' ' Let the ivails and lamentations, 
the groans, and sighs of bereaved and broken hearts, ascending 
from every village and hamlet in the Union to heaven to 
bear witness against you when God shall judge the earth 
— answer." Let — bloody battle-fields — the groans of the 
dying — the silence of the dead — answer/ Let family altars 
desecrated — hearthstones rediuith the life blood of mothers — in- 
nocent children, and helpless old men — answer. Let tvhole 
regions of country — recently teeming loith a laughing and 
joyous jjopulation—noio silent and desolate as if the '^scourge 
of God" had sioept over them, leaving neither tree nor shrub, 
nor blade of grass, nor one echo of the human voice, save that 
of lamentation and wo — answer.'' Let a muzzled press — 
lohite men denied the right of free speech^ dissevered and sub- 
jugated sovereign States, and a ballot box degraded to the 
point of the bayonet — answer ! ^^Let the appaling future, 
prophetic and awful, bearing bach to us the loildest shrieks 
ever borne upon the air, or heard by human ear ; and unheed- 
ed prayers for mercy, agonized by millions of loomen and 
children, in horror and despair, as they plead for death ratlier 
than dishonor from brutal and maddened slaves, turned loose 
by a proclamation fiendish and infernal — answer ! Whole 
States thus to be desolated, their entire popidation of noble, 
intelligent, refined Christian people, murdered, beggared, ex- 
iled, driven to mountains and swamps, from home and fire- 
side, to die of loant ; — let these answer ! and may God have 
mercy on such a monster ! 

History has its parallels, and its prophetic characters, 
in which the distinctive duality of Heaven and Hell— the 
good and the monstrous — is typified. 

Of the exalted type, full of the manhood of perfection 
and nobility, stand Moses and Solomon, Napoleon the 
Great, and the immortal Washington. 

Of the inferior, inferno type, history has furnished but 
two parallels, Caligula! and Abraham Lincoln! ! 

But — a new era has dawned upon the American people, 
and new lights have sprung up. The Constitution is no lon- 
ger the standard of loyalty. We must now ^^ sustain the ad- 
ministration," and the ^^administration is the government !" 
"He who sustains not the administration, sustains not the 
government, and is disloyal." What government? Not 
that of the Constitution, for it assumed only to exercise 
delegated powers. That was a republican government. — 



The one to which, loyalty is now demanded is an unre- 
stricted and imperious despotism, in which ^^ security to 
life, liberty and proj^erty ," is held only by the tenure of its 
omnipotent will. 

In all governments allegiance is due somewhere, and to 
something, and as the Constitution has been consigned to 
a place among the old garret lumber of the past, the pa- 
triotic aspiration of the dear people should not be permit- 
ted to rest in abeyance ! Why may they not, in humble 
obedience to the authoritative mandate of the President, 
and his Cabinet, tender homage and loyalty to their be- 
trayers ? Dogs licks the hand that smites them, and may AaA 
not the people demean themselves as dogs ? ''> 

But, who is this President who thus so pretentiously 
demands of men once free, now subjects, loyalty ? — A mere 
agent of the people — A hireling working for pay during a 
term of four years under the sanction of an oath to do 
their will as expressed in the bond — a mere segregated 
atom of sovereignty — the one 30,000,000 part of the ag- 
gregate body politic — an infinitesimal quantity so small 
in comparison with the whole as to be imperceptible, ex- 
cept microscopically, demands for himself and ^^ Head 
clerks,"— fealty ! If given — in what to end? The sub- 
version, inevitably, of the liberties of the people, and per- ^^ 
petual disunion. 

Coercion defeats its own purpose, and, if fealty to the 
administration, demands a blind and unquestioning obe- 
dience to its mandates and its policy, then must the people 
uphold it in its war of subjugation, emancipation and 
''Freedom for all" (except for tfie subjugated.) 

To repeat, Coercion defeats, inevitably, its own object 
and purpose. 

To the demonstration : 

"J'/ie Constitution," according to Webster, "{« the sole 
Bond of Union betiveen the States. To surrender the Consti- 
tution, is to surrender the Union." 

It is the compact between sovereign States voluntarily 
entered into. The States being Sovereign were equal, and 
herein consisted the beauty of the Confederation, Consent 
AND Equality. 

Destroy these, — and the soul and spirit of the whole 
is marred. It becomes an unseemly and mis-shapen 
structure, devoid of symmetry and beauty. If coercion be 
successful, immediately the condition of Conqueror and 
conquered, superior and inferior, arises. The unrestricted 
rule of the majority over the minority is inaugurated, and 
the vital principle of the Eepublic is destroyed forever. 
No Consent ! No Equality ! 

This is as natural a sequence from the law of force, ap- 



8 

plied to the restoration of the Union, as exists between 
cause and its effect. In the end of this struggle, if the 
North shall be successful, there will be no liberty for the 
South, — the Constitution ignored, — none for the North. 

If so, what are we fighting for? To hold the States fo- 
gether as one huge, vast despotism f and is this the humili- 
ating mission of Americans? 

But, must we allow the right of secession ? Yes, for a 
time, 'till the passions cool and reason resumes her sway. 
"This will be," says coercionist, to render the Union 
a "■rape of sand!" And what is the demonstration pre- 
sented to our eyes by the fearful and bloody events of the 
hour ? Secession loill he successful! — mark the prediction! — 
and the rope you intended should have been of steel, proves 
to be more brittle than glass, and has entailed upon us, 
and for our posterity, a debt so enormous that repudiation 
will surely cancel it, and deluged a prosperous and happy 
land with fraternal blood. 

Within Constitutional limits, ours is the strongest and 
best government ever devised by the wisdom of man. — 
Beyond these — thank Heaven! — the weakest — Strong for 
good — impotent for evil! 

In our foolish and mad attempt to w^ork miracles, and 
perf^l-m impossibilities, we have disgraced ourselves before 
the world, and the name of American will become a by- 
word and reproach among men. Compromise and concil- 
iation might have saved the greatest government ever in- 
stituted by man from destruction ; but unfortunately for 
the cause of human liberty, the era of great events and 
small men had come, and — God sent no angel to deliver us. 

We had a great ancestry, a Washington, a Jefferson, 
an Adams, a Franklin, a Patrick Henry, a Madison — the 
signers of that immortal document, the Declaration of Amer- 
ican Independence. These are our ancestry ! 

Oh ! with our dwarfed intellects — our puerile concep- 
tions ; could we at the beginning of this terrible era, have 
risen to half the altitude of theii' patriotism and honesty, 
this immeasurable calamity and national disgrace, had 
not fallen upon us. But no ! we preferred to cheat, and 
trick, and devour one another, and God seems to have let 
loose the animal instincts for our mutual destruction. 
When He rules not in us by the demonstrations of reason 
and of logic, we are no longer men ^^ created in the image 
of God ;" but venomous reptiles, hyenas, tigers, ravenous 
wolves, horrible monstrosities, like unto that animal mother 
which devours her own young ; and like her, we are mak- 
ing hellish meals of each other. 

Before God and man, this is the altitude and moral 
status of the American people this day ! 



9 

People of the North be no longer deceived ; pause and 
reflect. The whole character and purpose of this war has 
been changed. At first the avowed object was to re- 
store "the Union as it was, the Constitution as it is." — 
For this object you gave of your treasure and of your lives 
freely. It is now an abolition war, a war to turn loose 
upon society four millions of slaves, either to starve, or to 
live on the labor of your hands. If accomplished, the act 
is usurpation. Lincoln ought to be good authority on this 
point. In his Inaugural, he said : 

yi have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere 
with the institution of slavery in the States where it ex- 
ists. I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no incli- 
nation to do so." 

On the 11th of February, 1861, the House of Kepresen- 
tatives, by nearly a unanimous vote, passed the following 
resolutions : 

'■'Resolved, That neither the Federal Government nor 
the people of Governments of the non-slaveholding States 
have a purpose or a Constitutional right to legislate upon 
or interfere with slavery in any of the States of the Union." 
" Besolved, That those persons in the North who do not 
subscribe to the foregoing projjosition are too insignificant 
in number and influence to excite the serious attention 
or alarm of any portion of the people of this Republic, and 
that the increase of their numbers and influence does not 
keep pace with the increase of the aggregate population of 
this Union." 

How stands the question to-day ? The slave is not only 
declared, by a law of Congress, approved by the Pres- 
ident, free, but, a Bill is introduced to raise and arm one 
hundred and fifty thousand negroes, to aid in this war of 
aggression, subjugation and plunder^ which, if passed, 
will receive the prompt app'roval of the President, notwith- 
standing his avowal in 1861, that he had no purpose or 
legal right to interfere with slavery in the States. A 
more enormous wrong and outrage could not be perpetra- 
ted against the poor negro, or the material interests of the 
North. The act is one of treason against the Constitution, 
against humanity, and against all that is just and right. 
That you have been cheated and deceived up to this hour, 
is the fault of wicked rulers. Now that their schemes are 
fully developed, if you give aid or countenance further, 
the fault is yours. 

It was oracularly proclaimed in the beginning, that 
with 75,000 men, and one hundred millions of dollars, 



10 

the rebellion would assuredly be ^^ crushed out" in sixty, 
and at farthest, ninety days. The war ha6 continued near 
seven hundred days, a debt of over three thousand million 
dollars has been contracted, and an army of over a million 
of men, now reduced, according to a recent speech in Con- 
gress of the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, not more than live 
hundred thousand. It has melted away, and soon you will 
be conscripted to supply the vacuum, and to take your stand 
in the ranks beside the irrepressible nigger. Yet, with 
all this sacrifice of life and treasure, what has been accom- 
plished? Literally nothing — McClellan, Pope, Burnside, 
have successively attempted to take Richmond, and each, 
in turn, were defeated and driven back. The last ef- 
fort under Burnside, proved so disastrous that his army 
refused to respond to the " Ow to Richmond!" move, and 
became so demoralized and disorganized, that it became a 
matter of absolute necessity, to disintegrate it, and ineor- 
I^orate the fragments with troops less demoralized by over- 
wlielming defeats. 

But why continue the war ? The facts before you prove 
conclusively that you cannot subjugate the South. Will 
you give your lives to free the negro, to enrich contractors, 
and to entail upon yourselves and posterity a debt, which 
at the end of next year, cannot be less than four thousand 
million dollars? And not only this, but to inaugurate 
over yourselves a despotism ? Congress is about to give 
the President immunity for all his acts, legal and illegal, 
and to confer upon him supreme control over the Militia 
of the several States ; and in a short time, he will demand 
a repeal of all laws passed by State legislatures excluding 
the '^Atnerican citizen of African descent" from their bor- 
ders ; a refusal to do so will be denounced as treason, mil- 
itary governors will supercede your State legislatures and 
governors, and the down trodden African will luxuriate 
in your midst, as a ^'choseji people"! 

Lincoln has ignored the Constitution, and thereby revo- 
lutionized the government. We are not now living under 
that of our fathers. The will of an accidental majority 
rules, not the Constitution. There is a revolution in the 
North ; it preceded and compelled that in the South. Self 
preservation, the first law of nature, impelled the South 
to withdraw from the Union, as the only mode of escaping 
the domination of Northern aggression and usurpation.^ — 
In violation of the Constitution, Congress and the Presi- 
dent have made paper currency a legal tender. What 
shall constitute a legal tender is left to the States to de- 



11 

cide, not to Congress. The federal Constitution gives to 
Congress the ^ Wight to coin money and regulate the value 
thereof." Gold and silver are coin, paper is not. In spite 
of Congressional enactments, gold and silver still remain 
the standard of value, and greenbacks are fifty per cent, 
under jjar. In less than one year they will fall to more 
than one hundred per cent, below the standard : — in two 
years to one, and two thousand per centum. Then, we 
shall have arrived at an era similar to the old continental 
period, when the rich man of to-day will be the beggar of 
to-morrow, and utter ruin will stare every one in the face. 

"Coming events cast their shadows before" too plainly 
now, to leave any doubt as to the motives and purpose of 
the ruling powers, for the future. Recollect there is but 
one step between constitutional liberty and despotism. 
Be ye not deceived. You are not fighting for the Union, 
nor the "Stars and Stripes," but for your own enslave- 
ment, and the disgrace of the banner of Constitutional 
freedom. 

If you would have peace, and Union again, come back 
to the Constitution. It is the chart of your liberties, the 
ark of your safety. If you will not heed the living, listen 
to the dead. 

Thus speaks the father of his country, and Madison, the 
father of the Constitution. Hear them! 

Washington's warning against destroying the constitution. 

"It is important, likewise, tliat the habits of thinking, 
in a free country, should inspire caution in those intrusted 
with its administration, to confine themselves within their 
respective constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise 
of the powers of one department, to encroach upon another. 
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers 
of all the departments in one, and thus to create, what- 
ever the form of government, a real despotism. A just 
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it 
which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to 
satisfy us of this position. The necessity of reciprocal 
checks in trie exercise of political power, by dividing and 
distributing it into different depositories and constituting 
each the guardian of the public weal, against invasion by 
the others, has been evinced by experiments, ancient and 
modern ; some of them in our own country and under our 
own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to 
institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the dis- 
tribution or modification of the constitutional powers be, 



12 

in any particular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amend- 
ment IN THE WAY WHICH THE CONSTITUTION -DESIGNATES. But 

let there be no change by usurpation ; for though this, in 
one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the cus- 
tomary weapons by which free governments are destroyed. 
The precedent must always greatly overbalance, in perma- 
nent evil, any partial or transient benefit which the use 
can at any time yield." — [George Washington. 

Madison's views of constitutional limitations. 

* * * "To hold the union of the States as the basis of 
their peace and happiness ; to support the Constitution, 
which is the cement of Union, as loell in its limitations as 
in its authorities ; to respect the rights and authorities reserved 
to the States and to the people, as equally incorj)orated loith, 
and essential to the success of the general system ; to avoid 
the slightest interference loith the rights of conscience, or the 
functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdic- 
tion ; to preserve, to their full energy, the other salutary 
provisions in he\\B\i oi private and personal rights, and of 
the freedom of the press. As for as sentiments and inten- 
tions such as these can aid the fulfillment of my duty, they 
will be a resource which cannot fail me.'" — [President 
James Madison. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



II II II I II I II I nil lllll ill'i 'III' "I" "" "' 

012 026 671 8 9 



\ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 026 671 8 ^ 
J 



